Succulents are not the same when it comes to their light needs. Some, such as snake plants, can go beyond this and cope with as little light as possible while still maintaining their health.
But for the majority of succulents, especially if you’re growing them indoors, need a good 4 to 6 hours of direct sunlight a day. This is sometimes difficult to ensure because of the climate, house orientation, or lack of proper space in the windows.
Fortunately, this is no longer a problem since succulents can be grown with artificial light. Moreover, the artificial grow light will give a boost to your succulent plants by preventing their etiolation. It will even help them grow and bloom much faster.
Do the indoor succulents need 'grow lights' during the winter?
The short answer is not necessarily, but it may be a smart idea. If you have a window that receives bright light all day, your succulents are likely to thrive just fine in the winter. But the days are getting shorter so that they won’t get as much light as they did in the past.
If the succulents don’t get enough light, they tend to spread out and lose their vibrant colors and compact form. They’re still alive, and otherwise, they’d want more sun. Many shorter days in the winter can allow the succulents to spread out.
A grow light can be a perfect way to keep your succulents vibrant and lightweight. It helps to bring more bright light throughout the day. Many had succulents indoors for a couple of winters without rising sun, and they’ve been ok. By the time spring rolls around, many succulents are elongated, but trim them up and plant them before moving them out.
If you have decided, though, that you want to prevent your succulents from stretching out this year so you can decide to invest in some grow lights.
How long do I have to keep the rising lights on in the winter?
Succulents, like other trees, have growing and dormant cycles. Winter is also a dormant season for most succulents, which needs less sun, but indoors they will still usually consume as much as they can.
Succulents can not go into true dormancy when growing indoors until you compel them to change temperature and light.
Both succulents require darkness every day to ensure a stable growth cycle, but they need at least six sunshine hours a day to remain alive. If you use grow lights for your indoor succulents, you can keep them on for around 12-14 hours, mimicking natural daylight plus a few hours.
Check out this list of the best growing lights we’ve picked for you so that you can pick the one that best suits your succulents.
What are Grow Lights?
The purpose of Grow lights is either to have a light spectrum that mimics the photosynthetic spectrum of the sun or to produce a spectrum more suited to the needs of cultivated plants, in our case: succulents.
What sets standard lights away from Grow lights is the spectrum of light they emit when turned on. They are fitted with broad-spectrum horticultural lamps, ensuring that more colors are released in the full spectrum of light – the rainbow. And that’s why the typical light bulbs used in our homes burn: they use the yellow-orange portion of the spectrum that is the “hottest” part.
On the other hand, the light produced by the rising lights has a broader spectrum and is equally spread, making them cooler and cheaper to use and, of course, more effective for our succulents.
Is the Grow Light Good to Succulents?
A succulent that doesn’t get enough sunshine starts to stretch out. This is easy to spot since succulents appear to grow slowly, and when you find the contrary, your succulent is more likely to be subject to etiolation. The plant is etiolated as it grows too tall, thin, and spread due to inadequate sunlight.
All plants require photosynthesis light, but not usually sunshine. The only prerequisite is to select the correct form of light to expand, and photosynthesis will take place even at night with lights that contain blue and red wavelengths.
Succulents require lots of light for photosynthesis. This is a mechanism used by plants to turn water, sunlight, and carbon dioxide into nutrient energy to expand, flower, and reproduce.
Without sufficiently light, as indicated above, your succulents will be etiolated. They can also die in extreme cases because of a lack of light. Place in sunny windows and watch them closely to catch any signs of stretching.
But bear in mind that most of the succulents you grow outdoors can’t handle the cold. They’re going to get hurt by the heavy freeze. It will help if you put them inside when the temperature decreases to 40°C (about 5°C) in winter. Then follow an effective irrigation program since they would use so little water. The biggest obstacle you’re going to face now is lighting.
So, to give your succulent enough light to grow indoors during the winter, it is important to consider using a growing light.
What to look for in the Grow Light
The output of Light:
Lumens are the key indicator of light output or exposure that you can consider. Our eyes are not very analytical when it comes to calculating the brightness, so it’s necessary to read the growing light specs before purchasing them. Choose a rising light that offers 300-800 lumens per square foot.
Wattage:
Wattage can inform you how much energy the lamp uses and does not explain the light emitted quantity or nature. However, lumens per watt are a helpful way to measure the energy efficiency of rising lamps. The higher the lumens per watt, the more effective the light is.
Full-spectrum:
Light occurs in a variety of wavelengths that seem to us to be distinct colors. Plants prefer to use blue light to grow larger, while red light can promote flowering. Growing lights that emit only red and blue lights can be marginally more effective, but full-spectrum white lights promote healthy plant growth without irritating purple light.
The temperature of color:
The presence of “warmer” or “cooler” light colors is measured in Kelvins. The lower Kelvin temperature means colder, red light, while the higher Kelvin temperatures are for colder, blue light. In rising lamps, the visual temperature appears to be between 2200K and 7500K. Succulents are reasonably forgiving in this metric, and lights from 3,000K to 6,000K will help healthy growth.
Grow Lights Type
There are several types of rising lights to choose from, with varying sizes, appearances, and uses. Read on to discuss the pros and cons of the most common styles of lights.
Light-Emitting Diodes (LEDs):
- Recommended: full-spectrum white LED.
- It emits bright light but very little heat so as not to “warm” plants.
- Power effective and low-cost in the long run
Fluorescent Grow Light:
- Recommended: tubes of T5
- It can be reasonably inexpensive for short-term bulbs with shorter lifespans than LEDs.
- Indoor Succulents In Fluorescent T5 Tubes
High-Intensity Discharge (HID) and Metal Halide Discharge
- Suggested for big, professional growing activities
- Produce the largest volume of light and heat
- Consume far more energy and result in expensive power costs for the entire life of each lamp.
How do you use the Grow Light for succulent?
Once you’ve picked your preferred grow light, note to have a handy timer. This means that the plants have a proper rest time every day, i.e., a minimum of six hours.
It’s time to set them up. Decide where the plants will be located, and grow light will mount in your building. Usually, each growing light’s installation depends on the brand; any grow light you order should have precise guidance, comprehensive by the vendor, and typically not time-consuming.
We choose Gooseneck or movable lamps because they make the process quick. They’re too resilient to stick in whatever position you’re bending them.Â
If, for example, the lamp is a little lower and you need to make it higher because of your growing succulent, you don’t need to unscrew it and add a wall mount, adjust the lamp’s neck and adapt it to growing plants.
Later in our post, we will speak about other installation elements that need to be considered: how far we can put the growing lights from the succulents and how long they should be under them. Etc.
What kind of Grow Light can I use?
Like so many grow lights on the market, there are several good choices available for a wide variety of growing circumstances. We checked a lot, and three of them came out on top in various categories. Our recommendations are not endorsed and are focused entirely on our own experience during the trials.
- Dimensions: 5.59 x 5.59 x 4.29 inches
- Price: $29.99
- Lightness: 5,024 lumens
This flexible, full-range, white LED bulb can plug into the lamp of your choice. It’s just large enough to light up a few containers of succulents or a few plants that still have some natural sunshine. We love the adaptability of this little bulb and how inconspicuously it functions at home.
Sansi LED bulb
- Dimensions: 4.0’L x 1.9’W with flexible hanging chains and 6.0’L power cord
- Price: $93.99
- Lightness: 14,000 lumens
If you want to keep a lot of succulents indoors, this is a high-quality and inexpensive choice. 8 square feet is enough space to house a generous selection of plants. It fits well over a table, but all the plants under it may have equal light needs. There is also a brighter screen available for $90 with twice as many LEDs. We prefer the brighter variant for full sun varieties like Echeveria and Cactus.
LED Panels from Durolux
- Dimensions: 5.8″L x 3.8″W x 3.8″H with a 15.0’L power cable
- Price: $150.00
- Lightness: 2,000 lumens
This thin, hanging can light one of the most trendy we’ve ever seen on the market. It offers ample light to a few medium-sized plants and looks fantastic to do it. Soltech also sells a $200 larger light that emits 4,000 lumens of light.
Soltech LED Aspect
Extra Wide LED Indoor Herb Garden
This full-spectrum light bulb from SANSI has a superior color rendering index (CRI) relative to other leading brands on the market, making the light it generates the nearest to natural illumination, which is the ideal light for plants.
Users are happy with this on the Amazon product listing. Any of them have stated that they have accomplished excellent results. One buyer also said that her plants were growing quicker and more colorful than the natural sunlight alone.
Another good advantage of this LED light device is that it can be suspended on a hook, a wire, or mounted on its handle’s flat surface.
SANSI LED Grow Lights for Indoor Plants, Full Spectrum
This method is suitable for seedlings and cuttings and pre-established succulents, and other flowering plants. It has a toggle clamp for quick adjustment of the lamp height. It’s perfect if you want something simple and easy to set up, and reasonably easy to use. With 15-20 percent lighter than the normal lamp, the succulent plants can blush with the energy they get.
This rising light is available in two sizes – 2 feet and 4 feet – allowing it to be mounted in small spaces or to cover many plants at once. It is also eco-conscious since it consumes less electricity and has a longer life for a smaller bulb, resulting in less pollution.
Our last word: there are definitely some far more sophisticated light-growing solutions on the market with much more choices, but if you don’t want to think about so many settings, if you want the simplest workaround to get the job done right for your succulents, then we suggest the JumpStart Grow Light device.
Jump Start 2′ T5 Grow Light System
In reality, red and blue spectrum growth lights produce a violet glow that can be a little irritating, but they are commonly used by succulent lovers because, quite clearly, they work better.
This mixture of red and blue light is important for the growth and flowering of indoor succulents. It mimics several layers of sunlight colors such that plants can grow as naturally as possible.
We appreciate the two features of Ankace Develop Bright, the same features, among others, that make it Amazon’s Choice:
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- It has an adjustable gooseneck that helps you put the light near or farther away from your succulents, meaning that it is at an ideal distance from the light (which is usually 18 to 24 inches).
- It has a programmable timer that switches the light off after 3, 6, or 12 hours. You can reduce the brightness of this increasing light, too. E.g., if your succulents don’t react well to bright light and get a little sunburn, you can mitigate it quickly.
Ankace 5 Dimmable Levels Plant Grow Lights for Indoor Plants
The Roleadro LED grow light with 117 red LEDs and 52 blue LEDs. We’ve already discussed it: red and blue lights, even though they can be a little noisy, provide the greatest contribution to photosynthesis.
Using Roleadro, as with most LED lamps, you benefit from high lumen performance and low energy consumption.
It has a 45w LED Light panel (only absorbs 25W), which is very resistant and can last up to 50,000 hours.
It is a perfect choice for succulents as it covers a large angle of illumination and at the same time provides a reasonable distribution of light and heat.
Roleadro 75W Grow Light for Indoor Plants Full Spectrum
Other Useful Gadgets For Indoor Growing
The outlet timer makes growing succulents under growing lights amazingly simple. You will configure it to automatically turn it on and off at any time you want to. It makes it easy to change the length of “daylight” during the year and keeps your plants on a constant photo-period, even while you’re gone.
7 Day Programmable Digital Timer Switch with 2 Outlets
Healthy ventilation aids tremendously in controlling pests and illnesses, but it may be challenging to accomplish indoors. These little fans are strong but silent and can clip them around your plants.
6-Inch Clip Convertible Table-Top & Clip Fan Two Quiet Speeds
Also, with the best routine for ventilation and soaking/dry watering, pests will happen. If bugs make their way into your containers, 70% isopropyl alcohol is a simple, all-purpose remedy that kills insects without destroying your plant. It’s also easily available in pharmacies. Using a spray bottle, cover the whole plant and make careful to get between the leaves. Repeat every day until the pests are gone.
We hope you enjoy taking succulents to every corner of your work and home.
1 gallon & a 32 oz Spray Bottles – Made in The USA – FDA Registered
Frequently Asked Questions
We’re going to try to answer a few commonly asked questions about succulents grow lights.
We hope you’ll find a solution to the issue you’ve faced. If not, you should express your questions in the comments section. We’re so pleased to be of support!
More Tips
- If you don’t have a grow light for your succulent, or if you’re out of space under the grow light, use a little trick: position it next to the mirror, well placed, to give it a significant extra brightness.
- Don’t have your succulents at just one angle to the light source. Rotate every week so that each side absorbs the same amount of light.
- Place your hand on the plant and put it under the sun. If it is humid, the plant is too close to the rising light and should be repositioned.
- It’s never a smart idea to put a succulent that’s unexpectedly overwintered in your home or veranda in the sun. We urge you to get used to this adjustment to prevent burns progressively. Shade it gently for a few weeks with a shading net (or mosquito net) that can filter 25 to 50 percent of the sun’s rays. Or don’t point it south.
Bottom Line
Not Using a Succulent Grow Light?
It is not necessary to have grow lights for your succulents, even during the winter season. You can illuminate through the windows of your house or turn to succulent plants that need only low light for maintenance.Â
However, if you can’t have good lighting and your succulents require a lot of lighting to thrive, you need to consider getting them grow lights!
